28 January, 2014

The First Nantes Atlantique Training Weekend

I had my first ever team training camp at the weekend, in and around Nantes, with
da boyz. It was pretty good fun really. On Saturday we had glorious weather and
the menu for the day was long miles plus some lead-out train practice.

It's the little things like this that make me very happy to be at Nantes.

The long miles were really steady (although
naturally with an injection of pace on every small rise) and it was a good
chance to chat with mes nouveaux coéquipiers. The leadout practice was a good
laff and I got moved progressively further and further back in the line-up
because the Directeur said I was a big strong boy.

So we don't have a sink in our kitchen, what of it?

At least we've got cleaning implements handy!

Sunday, and the weather was less glorious, more
moist. I’m not fussed by the rain but it was amusing to see le Frogs
shrivelling up under the downpours. I’m not sure whether they got the irony.
Anywho, we did some ‘bourdieu’ practice which is basically 5 minutes of
smashing each other up in a crosswind. We got better at working together in an
echelon as we did more repetitions, which is lucky, because we were seriously
crap at first!! Something to note is that the French don’t only say echelon,
they use another word (which I’ve forgotten) so that was fun to comprehend!

A three hour long, super-serious team meeting.

After that, we did some 35 second hill reps: not
much to say about them really, they were about as fun as you imagine. Something
I took from the weekend is that I’m in seriously good shape, not least
because my recovery was so good during those efforts.

Woah, that was a lot of bike-chat wasn’t it! To
balance things out here’s some pictures of what I did today on my rest day in
Nantes.

I 3> NANTES!

Sat on a bus, then a tram. A journey which takes 10 minutes in a car took me... nearly an hour!

Drank in les beau paysage.

Looked at some steps.

Laid on some steps.

Played knock and run, with GOD.

(He didn't answer).

Did some passive smoking at a French cafe with The Mammoth.

Thought about jumping through a fountain. Thought better of it.

Looked at a theatre, and felt more cultured because of it.

Looked around a memorial to the end of slavery. It was a sobering affair.

I was glad to surface from there.

There were literally hundreds of small lights set in the pavement and each one had the name of an ancient slave ship which had ported in Nantes. What a horrible thought.

Then we went back to our childhood, and C&A!!

I picked my apartment.

We found an amazing old arcade, with a DISCO-CHERUB inside!

And thennnnnn I came home and washed my bike... Living!!

I'm going to Spain for a week long training camp this Saturday so you may not hear from me until after that. Have a great week everyone.DMD